Love, science, and politics collide in Richard Kenney 's collection, Terminator: Poems, 2008–2018, organized around the so-called terminator—the line, perpendicular to the equator, that divides night from day. The poet's division of light verse from darker poems serves to remind us that what makes us laugh is often dead serious, and what's most serious might best be understood through wordplay and an ironic eye. Kenney is the author of four previous books of poetry, The Evolution of the Flightless Bird, Orrery, The Invention of the Zero, and The One-Strand River. He is a MacArthur Fellow and an English professor at the University of Washington. This series of readings is organized and hosted by Stephen Yenser, poet and professor at UCLA.